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Forum:Scientific concepts unique to GG
Mnenyver suggested (shoutbox) we need a category for scientific concepts unique to GG. I suggest the name "unnatural philosophy" (as opposed to "science!", which I am suggesting as a category for pages that have substantial real-world science, such as Jägermonster/Mad on GJB2 mutations). However, I'm not sure offhand what articles would go in this category, so I'm opening up this discussion to invite everyone to weigh in (I considered just posting to User talk:Mnenyver).⚙Zarchne 17:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC) :Well, in addition to real world scientific concepts, the comic frequently has science that's completely unique to the comic (whether for silliness or plot purposes). It was sparked by your category for piston leg vehicles. I was thinking of grouping certain articles and adding others, such as heterodyning, transdimensional harmonics, time windows/anomalies/portals, various clank styles, slaver wasps, The Other's tech, etc. Basically, articles that explain the rules as we've seen them so far for sparky science in Girl Genius. --mnenyver 18:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC) Category name suggestions: Science! and Spark Science! --mnenyver 21:17, 28 November 2008 (UTC) :Why "Spark science!" as opposed to "Mad science!"? I still say that, like "Arts and Letters", given that "science" as we use it is a relatively new use of the word, TPU is likely to have a school of either natural philosophy or something like "unnatural philosophy" which is an obvious parody. I'm not saying this is an actual department/school at Transylvania Polygnostic University or trying to fit things into known departments (or those departments into schools), just that it "works" for me... it fits with names like "The Department of Almost Certainly True History".⚙Zarchne 23:05, 28 November 2008 (UTC) ::I just suggested it because "Science!" is used in the radio plays and is kind of a thematic rallying cry for the comic. Also, we don't know that the comic is set in the past. It could be a different version of our modern world, for all we know. I love the ideas of departments, though, given the academic theme here. :) --mnenyver 01:45, 29 November 2008 (UTC) :::Oh, I actually prefer the hypothesis that the comic is set “in the present”, although another way to look at it is that the century is not “hidden” but unspecified or ambiguous... similar to the way Tolkien’s Middle Earth is the real world but in a fictional, “mythological” past — as are Wagner’s operas, more or less. (Cf. the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum physics and Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast, which hypothesized three time dimensions.) (Tolkien’s fantasy is actually something of a Christian response to anti–Christian Wagner.) Obviously this goes back to the "canon" — the idea that the authors themselves do not posit an objective reality. :::As for “Science!” as a category name, maybe it was just my rare sense of humor (I would say “unique” but I don’t know — these days, even if you’re one in a million, that still means there’s six or seven thousand of you), or having watched too much Bill Nye the Science Guy that made me think it would be more amusing (post–modern–style double irony, like Watterson’s Calvin building one perfectly normal snowman (or snow family?) as the ultimate example of horror in his series of macabre snow scenes) to use it for actual real–world science. :::(I sorta regret not having completed the course catalog for the Henry Mudd College of Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, with such courses as “linear alcohol” (the drugs department), “physical love” (the love department), &c.) :::⚙Zarchne 18:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC), updated 19:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)